Rep. Andy Josephson - I answer to you!

The past week has likely been the most interesting I have experienced during my time serving in the Alaska Legislature. In my last newsletter I wrote about a bill that did too much bad and not enough good for public education. Voting against the bill was extremely challenging. House Bill 278 included a slight increase to the Base Student Allocation (BSA), but it was far from fully funding public education and included too many ill-advised changes, like allowing public dollars to go to private schools and creating an unfair teacher tenure system. Taken together, the bad outweighed the good, which led to my "No" vote.

Three nights ago, I cast a similarly tough vote on the minimum wage. I voted to keep the minimum wage increase Initiative on the ballot for Alaskans to vote on. I did this by voting against a bill that, if passed by the entire Legislature, would raise the minimum wage but remove the Initiative from the ballot. The process of these moves can be confusing, but my support for increasing the minimum wage is not. Below is my rationale.

A brief history in time…

I am an absolute supporter of an increase to the minimum wage, however due to the historical context of this issue in Alaska, prudence was required when a bill increasing the minimum wage came to the floor of the Alaska House of Representatives.

• 2002: Supporters of increasing the minimum wage submitted nearly 50,000 signatures for a ballot initiative. That initiative increased the minimum wage from $5.65 to $7.15. In addition it called for an annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustment or keeping Alaska’s minimum wage one dollar over the federal minimum wage rate, whichever option was greater.

Under Alaska’s constitution, the passage of a bill “substantially similar” to the initiative removes the initiative from the ballot. That same year, the Legislature passed a bill identical to the initiative, preempting the ballot initiative process.

• 2003: Less than a year after the bill passed in to law, the Legislature repealed both the CPI and the "one dollar over federal" wage adjustments. Those changes effectively gutted long term protections for workers.

• 2009: The Legislature restored the $.50 over federal minimum wage Alaska rate, and the Alaska minimum wage has been $7.75 per hour since 2010. However, had the Legislature left the CPI adjustment in place in 2003, the $7.15 Alaska minimum wage which took effect on January 1, 2003 would be $9.53 per hour today. (This amounts to close to $300 per month difference!!!).

• 2013: With that fact in mind, supporters of raising the minimum wage again collected 43,000 signatures from across the state to increase the minimum wage and tie it to the CPI.

• 2014: With 16 days left in session, House leadership introduced HB 384, which mirrors the ballot initiative. If this bill passes the Senate and becomes law then the ballot initiative would again be bumped off of the 2014 ballot in August.

My concern is with the knowledge I have from 2003, when members of the House gutted the minimum wage bill only a year after passing it. HB 384 from the 2014 legislative session is not a bill to raise the minimum wage-- it is a bill to remove the ballot initiative from the August elections. It also gives the Legislature the ability to alter the bill next year. This is in contrast with a provision in the Alaska constitution that says laws passed by initiative cannot be repealed for a full two years after successfully voted on by the people.

In addition to the constitutional protections for laws passed by initiative, it is much harder for legislators to undo laws passed by initiative because those laws are direct expressions of the people’s will. For instance, most legislators agree 90 days is not long enough to afford good public process in the Legislature. But because the voters set the 90-day session limit by initiative in 2006, legislators are reluctant to change that statute. The 90-day session initiative passed with a mere 50.8% approval, yet the Legislature has upheld the law for eight years without changing it. Increasing the minimum wage is likely to pass with significantly higher numbers, and if it does, it would be even more difficult for the Legislature to gut it like it did in 2003.

I trust the public's voice. A lot of time, energy, and hard work was put in to gathering signatures for the minimum wage ballot initiative. Those supporters and the Alaskan public deserve to vote on the issue. I trust the public's intentions and goodwill. I also trust the public to fully vet an increase to the minimum wage over the course of a nine month period in contrast to the 90 minute committee hearing the Legislature had on the bill.

Thank you for taking the time to read about the decision making process that went in to my vote on the minimum wage bill. If you have any questions or would like to speak with me further, please give me a call.

Extra, extra! Several news articles have done a good job in covering the minimum wage issue, you can read them here:

http://www.adn.com/2014/04/13/3424619/minimum-wage-hike-clears-state.html?sp=/99/188/189/

http://www.alaskapublic.org/2014/04/13/115778/

http://www.adn.com/2014/04/14/3425685/our-view-politics-and-the-minimum.html?sp=/99/328/#navlink=subnav

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20140413/after-alaska-house-passes-minimum-wage-bill-chenault-takes-ballot-initiative-leader

Please contact me if I can be of assistance to you or your family,

I Answer to You!

Representative Andy Josephson
State Capitol Room 430
Juneau AK, 99801
Phone: 907-465-4939
Rep.Andy.Josephson@akleg.gov